Technical Field
The present invention concerns a rotor blade of a wind power installation, in particular a substantially two-part rotor blade. The invention further concerns a wind power installation comprising such a rotor blade.
Description of the Related Art
Rotor blades of wind power installations have long been known. The present invention concerns in particular rotor blades of a so-called horizontal-axis wind power installation, namely a wind power installation in which one or more rotor blades form an aerodynamic rotor and as intended rotate about a substantially horizontal axis which can also be slightly tilted. Such a wind power installation is also shown in FIG. 1.
In that respect modern wind power installations are nowadays of increasingly large rotor diameters and thus longer rotor blades. That gives rise increasingly to problems when transporting the rotor blades to the erection location, because of the increasing size of the rotor blades.
For example, on the wind power installation of type E126 from Enercon it is known to use a divided rotor blade which inter alia is sub-divided into two parts in the direction of the rotor blade longitudinal axis, an inner part and an outer part. In that case the inner part is made of steel. Accordingly this gives a rotor blade a high mass, which can be a disadvantage in many aspects. The weight of the rotor of the wind power installation is increased and therewith also the weight of the pod of the wind power installation. To be able to carry the higher masses of the rotor on the pod, modifications may also be required there, and they can lead to an additional increase in the weight of the pod. In addition transportation and also in particular installation of such rotor blade parts of steel is complicated and expensive and makes it necessary to use a correspondingly large crane which is designed for the loads involved.
The German Patent and Trade Mark Office searched the following state of the art in the priority application: DE 10 2006 014 742 B4, DE 199 62 989 B4, DE 10 2006 022 279 A1, DE 20 2011 101 634 U1, EP 1 798 412 A2 and EP 1 398 499 A1.